Paint Schoodic

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Buckling down to do some work

Mountain Farm in Evening, 8X6, oil on canvas

Yesterday, I spent several hours hiking at the 3,000-acre
Paul Smith's College Visitor
Interpretive Center (VIC). We’re expected to paint there tomorrow, and I’ve
never been there. Toting up the various trails I followed, I figure I hiked about
five miles, which is my normal daily walk at home. Hiking trails, however, are
different from paved urban sidewalks, particularly in a mountainous area.

There is an iconic view of a rock outcropping in the VIC’s Heron
Marsh which is lovely, but it is perhaps too perfect for my taste. Brian
McDonnell, VIC facilities manager, warned me that it would be swarming with
artists on Friday. A lovely view on the far end of the marsh caught my eye, but
it’s a mile and a half from the parking lot. There is a spruce swamp that is
simply magical, but I’m not sure how I’ll convert that to something
intelligible. I won’t choose now; I think it would be better to let the views
percolate in my mind’s eye before committing them to canvas.

Approaching the spruce swamp at the VIC.

I also went back to two sites that I visited on
Tuesday, because I wasn’t certain they would make good compositions. I did
greyscale drawings to satisfy myself that painting them would work.

A panoramic view of the High Peaks can only work if there's foreground interest. I'll tidy up the trees and I think it will work.

At about 5 PM, I went to town to have my boards stamped.
From there, Crista Pisano, Laura Bianco and I went to Gabriels, NY to paint farms
in the waning evening light. It was the first time I’ve actually flexed my
brush hand in a week, and it felt good.

I'm still not convinced about these river rocks at Jay, but painting should be all about taking risks, right?

Message me if you
want information about next year’s Maine workshops. Information about this
year's programs is available here.